


Silence and Slow Time

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Foyle's War
Genre: Fishing, Gen, spiritual kinship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:23:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9842372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: A series of linked ficlets in which Christopher Foyle takes his godson fishing. Over the course of a decade or so, what this looks like changes.(This is for BritishDetectives, who asked for it.)





	1. Chapter 1

As he unpacks his tackle, Christopher Foyle finds time to wonder where -- and how -- Sam found a pair of waterproof boots small enough for a four-year-old. It is the last quiet moment he has for some time.

"What's that made of?"

"Bamboo cane -- don't pull on the line."

"What's bamboo?"

"It's a kind of plant. Grows in Asia." He holds his breath, waiting for the _Why?_ , but it does not come.

"How did it get here?" An advanced variation.

"Ships."

"I like ships."

"Good. Now--" His admonition to silence is lost in the noise of a splash. Watching his godson triumphantly stirring up mud by jumping in the shallows, he supposes he must be relieved that young Christopher's entrance into the water was intentional. 

"Look!" The proffered trophy is an exceedingly bedraggled handful of weeds.

"Yes, I see." Christopher Foyle sighs as he weighs the likelihood of keeping his namesake contentedly and quietly occupied for the length of time it would take the water to settle.

"Do you know," asks Foyle, "how to make a ship out of paper?"


	2. Chapter 2

"If we're going to have fish for supper," says Christopher Foyle, "you'll have to be quieter than that." 

His namesake sighs as gustily as he can. It's an improvement, Foyle considers, over an off-key treble rendition of "Three Coins in the Fountain."

There is, for some moments, silence over the shade-dappled water. The river's surface is broken only by drifting hawthorn blossoms.

"Can _I_ have a go?"

It is Christopher Foyle's turn to sigh. " _If_ you have learned to swim properly by the end of the summer, you may. You shouldn't trust this river. Any more than you should trust the fish." He winks solemnly.

His godson throws himself back against the bank and begins to drum his heels. Foyle chooses to interpret this as an expression of philosophy, rather than pique. Some little time later, he is confirmed in his judgment.

"Why must we wait so long for fish?"

"Opinion differs." The silence takes on an unmistakably breathless quality. Eventually, Foyle relents: "I've known trout cleverer than some humans."

Christopher laughs, richly satisfied. "But not cleverer than you."

Foyle coughs. "Well. Opinion differs." Once again they fall silent.

"Can I look at your flies?"

"You may," says Foyle, with slight grammatical emphasis.

"Nymphs are a funny name for flies, aren't they?"

" _Christopher_ ," intones Foyle, as awfully as he can.

"Sorry," whispers the boy contritely.

The silence stretches on long enough that Foyle ventures a glance over his shoulder. He is unsurprised to discover his godson sprawled in blissful oblivion next to their supplies. He sighs contentedly, and devotes his full attention to the play of the bait.

"Christopher," hisses Foyle at last. "Christopher!"

"Hm? What?"

"Shh. Bring me the net. I think I've caught supper."


	3. Chapter 3

"Thanks _ever_ so much for the rod, Uncle Christopher."

Foyle clears his throat. "Very welcome."

"I don't think Mum thinks I'm tall enough to manage it. But I told her it wasn't heavy!"

"Well. Let's see how you go."

They sit side by side on the bank, choosing their flies, the late spring sunshine warm on their backs.

"Can I ask you a question?" asks Christopher, superfluously. Foyle eyes him from under lowered lids. His godson's profile, at 12, has acquired a curious, novel inscrutability, and a lean intensity that makes it easy to forget how close to childhood he is.

"You've never felt it necessary to ask _that_ one before," temporizes Foyle, mentally reviewing possible subjects of inquiry. Is the boy the right age for confirmation? Surely, with an overabundance of avuncular vicars in the family, a theologically vague godfather would hardly be appealed to...

"What did you and Mum do in the war?"

Ah. "You stand upstream," says Foyle. "Catch 'em as they come down." The silence stretches between them, and he thinks of the placards of both his wars, promising eternal shame to any not providing a satisfactory answer to this particular question. What can one ever tell a child about war?

"It's just," persists Christopher, "that the answers never seem to _fit_ , if you see what I mean. To hear Mum talk, it was either sort of dull routine - driving you around and taking out the spark plugs every night - or gloriously exciting, apprehending villains and such. And all _you_ ever say," adds Christopher accusingly, "is that you 'did your jobs, and did them rather well, you like to think.' "

The boy's mimicry is accurate enough to startle Foyle into a laugh. "Well!" He lets his bait play, testing the current. "It's all true.

"Your mother," he says slowly, "was never less than entirely enthusiastic. Sometimes frighteningly so." Confronting armed thugs and entire divisions of the Government with terrifying insouciance... "We were bombed, once," he says, "and she was bandaging people up within ten minutes."

Christopher looks sidelong at him. "But she's rubbish at bandaging!"

"She was then, too."

The boy laughs. "She never told me you were bombed," he says reflectively, after a moment. Foyle's mouth quirks. He thinks of Sam, afire with indignation: _You do realize this is the third time I've been blown up._

They fish in companionable silence for some time.

"The first time we worked together," says Foyle, dreamily reminiscent, "your mother hit an odious little man in the face with a bin lid."


	4. Chapter 4

Christopher Foyle squints thoughtfully up at his godson. They have been fishing for some little time when he finally decides to broach the subject.

"You know," he says, "that hairstyle is wasted on the fish."

"Don't _you_ start," rejoins Christopher, ungraciously.

Foyle registers this only with raised eyebrows, pursed lips. 

"Sorry," mutters his grandson after an interval.

"Accepted."

Christopher sighs. His hair is sufficiently waxed not to stir with the huff of his breath. "It's only," he says, "that Mum says it looks like half of a victory roll."

Foyle only half-suppresses his grin. "I'm afraid she's right." After a few more moments, he adds: "Thought very glamorous in their time, victory rolls."

"But do _you_ think it looks silly?"

Foyle is silent, watching the play of light on the water, acutely conscious of the anxiety emanating from the adolescent next to him. "Not for me to say," he says at last.

Christopher reels in his line, inspects his bait critically, casts again. "I don't care that much about it, really."

"Still worth doing?" Foyle feels the tug on his own line, hesitates to pull it tight, to frighten the fish.

His godson sighs again. "Well," he says, "there's this girl..."

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/44477


End file.
